When marketing your business on Reddit and other social media it’s important to optimize your efforts for all factors. As has been shown time and time again, when you post on Reddit can have a major impact on the number of people that see your post.
Reddit’s traffic fluctuates significantly throughout the day. To optimize visibility, you want to post at a time when your post can gain traction and reach the top right as traffic is peaking. This also helps spur early discussion in the comments that drives engagement with your post for hours after.
We have compiled Reddit traffic data and data on the most successful posts on Reddit to help you find the best time to post on Reddit.
Sitewide data on the best time to post on Reddit
Traffic numbers vary but the trend of decreasing towards the late morning and increasing at night until around 11PM Eastern Time is consistent across Reddit’s largest subreddits. As most of Reddit’s audience is based in the US, this is consistent with most people’s work/school schedule.
The best times to post on Reddit are in the morning (8-11am EST) and early afternoon (2-3pm EST). Posting at these times allows your post to start gaining traction and upvotes by early afternoon when Reddit traffic starts increasing. These early upvotes will help your post show up on the Hot page where the vast majority of Reddit’s traffic goes.
Of course, there is a question of correlation versus causation. Are most top posts posted during these times simply because that’s when most posts are made? Or does the time chosen actually increase their odds of going viral? As with most things, it’s a combination of factors.
Posting slightly earlier can help your post gain traction before traffic peaks. It can also reduce the number of other posts competing for viewers’ attention.
Best times to post on Reddit for the UK and Europe
These times are in the Eastern Time Zone, as approximately 55% of Reddit’s traffic originates from the United States and Canada. If the subreddit or audience you are targeting is primarily based another time zone, this should be adjusted.
For example, if you are targeting a European audience, you should adjust this to their time zone. For the UK, this converts to 4-7am EST and 10am-11am EST. For Western Europe, it corresponds to 3-6am EST and 9am-10am EST, as shown below for /r/Italy.
You can check traffic data for popular subreddits by searching on Reddit and use RedditList.com to get data on the most popular subreddits and the top posts on those subreddits.
Best days of the week to post on Reddit
It’s important to optimize for the day of posting as well as the time, as Reddit’s traffic varies significantly by the day and time. The best days to post on Reddit tend to be on the weekend, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening EST.
With most people off from work or school, Reddit receives a significant traffic bump throughout the weekend.
Top upvoted posts by day on Reddit’s most popular subreddit (/r/Funny).
How to find the best time to post on a specific subreddit
While there are general trends for traffic across Reddit, these trends can vary significantly depending on the subreddit you’re targeting and its audience’s location and usage patterns.
Thankfully, there’s a tool that can help you find the best time to post your content for any subreddit.
LaterForReddit uses Reddit’s API to get data on the top performing posts in any of Reddit’s subreddits. From there, you can see the best days and times to post your content and maximize post reach. If, for example, you wanted to post in /r/InternetIsBeautiful, you would input the subreddit, and LaterForReddit would come up with a list of the best times to post your content.
Once you’ve found the best time to post on that subreddit, LaterForReddit will allow you to schedule your post for that time to maximize your post’s results.
How to Schedule Your Reddit Posts for the Best Possible Times
If you post to Reddit regularly, or aren’t in the same time zone as most of your audience, it can be difficult to consistently post at exactly the right time. Apps like Postpone for Reddit solve that for you.
Postpone allows you to schedule your Reddit posts ahead of time, and automatically posts them for you at the time selected. Postpone also has built-in recommendations for the best times to post to each subreddit.
How to Optimize Your Post for Success on Reddit
Timing isn’t all that matters. In many subreddits, patterns emerge in the titles of top performing posts as well. On /r/Funny for example, we can see patterns in both words and phrases that tend to show up disproportionally in top performing posts.
LaterForReddit will show you those patterns too. This feature tends to work best on the most popular subreddits with significant amounts of post data to analyze.
How to Maximize Upvotes Early On
Reddit’s voting system has far more of an impact on your post’s visibility than when it is posted. You can post at precisely the right time and still be buried at the bottom of the subreddit if your post doesn’t get enough early upvotes. Early upvotes are key to the success of your post.
In one study, researchers found that a single upvote or downvote could significantly affect the success of a post on Reddit. Early upvotes tell Reddit whether they should show your post to more users. Initial votes help kickstart a cycle where your post is shown to more users and gains more upvotes.
To maximize your upvotes during this critical period after your post, you can buy Reddit upvotes to kickstart your post’s visibility. With even a small number of upvotes early on, you can give your post a boost that will help it move from the barrage of posts on New to the subreddit’s Hot page.
